kv wrote:Yes, it is one of the "battleground" states both are fighting for...Clinton needs a state or two of these according to polls...trump needs most of them to win..so Clinton winning just 1 or 2 seals it for her...so the whole race is those states...some states like California have been Democrat by a large percentage for decades now.

Florida has huge electoral votes...if trump can't win it this election will be over in a hurry (it will be imho)

If there is a single sentence that characterizes the election, it is this: “He says the things I’m thinking.” That may be what is so terrifying. Who knew that so many tens of millions of white Americans were thinking unconscionable things about their fellow Americans? Who knew that tens of millions of white men felt so emasculated by women and challenged by minorities? Who knew that after years of seeming progress on race and gender, tens of millions of white Americans lived in seething resentment, waiting for a demagogue to arrive who would legitimize their worst selves and channel them into political power? Perhaps we had been living in a fool’s paradise. Now we aren’t.

This country has survived a civil war, two world wars, and a great depression. There are many who say we will survive this, too. Maybe we will, but we won’t survive unscathed. We know too much about each other to heal. No more can we pretend that we are exceptional or good or progressive or united. We are none of those things. Nor can we pretend that democracy works and that elections have more or less happy endings. Democracy only functions when its participants abide by certain conventions, certain codes of conduct and a respect for the process.

No more can we pretend that we are exceptional or good or progressive or united. We are none of those things.The virus that kills democracy is extremism because extremism disables those codes. Republicans have disrespected the process for decades. They have regarded any Democratic president as illegitimate. They have proudly boasted of preventing popularly elected Democrats from effecting policy and have asserted that only Republicans have the right to determine the nation’s course. They have worked tirelessly to make sure that the government cannot govern and to redefine the purpose of government as prevention rather than effectuation. In short, they haven’t believed in democracy for a long time, and the media never called them out on it.

Was interesting that one of the few big polls to predict a tight race was the la times usc poll...they polled a batch of people at various times, the same people, over and over and you can see how they trended to trump everytime the emails came up...or the last gasp fbi remarks....people really changed their minds from Clinton to trump...

I think several things contributed to people changing their minds at the last minute:(1) The FBI reopening the investigation, as well as the following things connected to it: (a) Comey's letter to Congress, (b)the emails on Weiner's computer, and (c)Clinton's maid having access to the emails and faxing them. And (2) the increases in the ACA insurance premiums. All of these things occurred within about two weeks of the election.

In addition, the media coverage of Clinton and Trump was not handled in the same manner. Charlie Cook discussed this last night on CSPAN. Trump received a lot of free air time when the media choose to cover his speeches/events in their entirety. During previous campaigns, candidates' speeches were not as readily available with the same frequency let alone in their entirety. While the media frequently aired Trump's speeches entirety, this was not the case with Clinton.

One thing I could not wrap my head around was why Clinton's "scandals" seem to stick, whereas with Trump's scandals many people were more willing to move on. Again - the media had some influence. Although there was some analysis (and I use the word "analysis" loosely) of Trump, the media didn't focus much/attention on Trump's accomplishments/failures. They treated him as circus entertainment for ratings by simply letting him speak for himself (most of the time). Whereas with Clinton, there was never ending analysis/speculation on Clinton's messes and what Trump had to say about it and his next move. Most of the time Trump was not treated seriously as a candidate; therefore, he much of what he said went unchallenged when he was interviewed. What the media did do was emphasize that Trump supporters were hair-brained hillbillies. Well if you have a large section of the population that is not only uninformed but also feels marginalized, they will resent the way they are presented by the talking heads. You have to remember that everyone does not have the same amount of time to devote to watching/reading the news. I'm am not making excuses for being uninformed or for not understanding how the US government works. What I realize is that if you have a limited amount of time to devote to reading/watching the news, your sources are important. Consider local news and its presentation as determined by the social norms of a particular geographic location and its homogeneous/heterogeneous makeup.

Having said all of that, I think most Trump supporters are uninformed, blissfully ignorant deplorables.

It was crazy looking at the state maps by districts....cities were Clinton...country trump...there is a division...and since all of the news comes from the cities...be believed our bubble as reality of our nation as a whole...that was a façade we should have felt...but we didn't...so I find myself today almost more enlightened then bummed...almost

chaos wrote:I think several things contributed to people changing their minds at the last minute:(1) The FBI reopening the investigation, as well as the following things connected to it: (a) Comey's letter to Congress, (b)the emails on Weiner's computer, and (c)Clinton's maid having access to the emails and faxing them. And (2) the increases in the ACA insurance premiums. All of these things occurred within about two weeks of the election.

In addition, the media coverage of Clinton and Trump was not handled in the same manner. Charlie Cook discussed this last night on CSPAN. Trump received a lot of free air time when the media choose to cover his speeches/events in their entirety. During previous campaigns, candidates' speeches were not as readily available with the same frequency let alone in their entirety. While the media frequently aired Trump's speeches entirety, this was not the case with Clinton.

One thing I could not wrap my head around was why Clinton's "scandals" seem to stick, whereas with Trump's scandals many people were more willing to move on. Again - the media had some influence. Although there was some analysis (and I use the word "analysis" loosely) of Trump, the media didn't focus much/attention on Trump's accomplishments/failures. They treated him as circus entertainment for ratings by simply letting him speak for himself (most of the time). Whereas with Clinton, there was never ending analysis/speculation on Clinton's messes and what Trump had to say about it and his next move. Most of the time Trump was not treated seriously as a candidate; therefore, he much of what he said went unchallenged when he was interviewed. What the media did do was emphasize that Trump supporters were hair-brained hillbillies. Well if you have a large section of the population that is not only uninformed but also feels marginalized, they will resent the way they are presented by the talking heads. You have to remember that everyone does not have the same amount of time to devote to watching/reading the news. I'm am not making excuses for being uninformed or for not understanding how the US government works. What I realize is that if you have a limited amount of time to devote to reading/watching the news, your sources are important. Consider local news and its presentation as determined by the social norms of a particular geographic location and its homogeneous/heterogeneous makeup.

Having said all of that, I think most Trump supporters are uninformed, blissfully ignorant deplorables.

All good points. I totally agree. I think you could add facebook, social media, and alt-news sites to adding to the misinformation. The way people get their news when they are lazy or passive about it, is scary and often times just flat wrong. People are living more and more in their own echo chambers and technology somehow has made it worse when it should have made factual info more abundant. Not sure what the solution is to having an inform society anymore.

chaos wrote:I think several things contributed to people changing their minds at the last minute:(1) The FBI reopening the investigation, as well as the following things connected to it: (a) Comey's letter to Congress, (b)the emails on Weiner's computer, and (c)Clinton's maid having access to the emails and faxing them. And (2) the increases in the ACA insurance premiums. All of these things occurred within about two weeks of the election.

In addition, the media coverage of Clinton and Trump was not handled in the same manner. Charlie Cook discussed this last night on CSPAN. Trump received a lot of free air time when the media choose to cover his speeches/events in their entirety. During previous campaigns, candidates' speeches were not as readily available with the same frequency let alone in their entirety. While the media frequently aired Trump's speeches entirety, this was not the case with Clinton.

One thing I could not wrap my head around was why Clinton's "scandals" seem to stick, whereas with Trump's scandals many people were more willing to move on. Again - the media had some influence. Although there was some analysis (and I use the word "analysis" loosely) of Trump, the media didn't focus much/attention on Trump's accomplishments/failures. They treated him as circus entertainment for ratings by simply letting him speak for himself (most of the time). Whereas with Clinton, there was never ending analysis/speculation on Clinton's messes and what Trump had to say about it and his next move. Most of the time Trump was not treated seriously as a candidate; therefore, he much of what he said went unchallenged when he was interviewed. What the media did do was emphasize that Trump supporters were hair-brained hillbillies. Well if you have a large section of the population that is not only uninformed but also feels marginalized, they will resent the way they are presented by the talking heads. You have to remember that everyone does not have the same amount of time to devote to watching/reading the news. I'm am not making excuses for being uninformed or for not understanding how the US government works. What I realize is that if you have a limited amount of time to devote to reading/watching the news, your sources are important. Consider local news and its presentation as determined by the social norms of a particular geographic location and its homogeneous/heterogeneous makeup.

Having said all of that, I think most Trump supporters are uninformed, blissfully ignorant deplorables.

I guess you've read Michael Moore's morning after to-do list...I thought this point was particularly true:

He added that Trump should have never been treated lightly and, echoing the sentiments of Stephen Colbert, said that the media was complicit in helping him rise. “He was never a joke. Treating him as one only strengthened him. He is both a creature and a creation of the media and the media will never own that.”

He added that Trump should have never been treated lightly and, echoing the sentiments of Stephen Colbert, said that the media was complicit in helping him rise. “He was never a joke. Treating him as one only strengthened him. He is both a creature and a creation of the media and the media will never own that.”

Since you brought it to my attention I just searched for it. (I read he originally posted it on facebook. I'm not much of a facebook user.

Here is the list if anyone is interested:

Morning After To-Do List:

1. Take over the Democratic Party and return it to the people. They have failed us miserably.

2. Fire all pundits, predictors, pollsters and anyone else in the media who had a narrative they wouldn't let go of and refused to listen to or acknowledge what was really going on. Those same bloviators will now tell us we must "heal the divide" and “come together.” They will pull more hooey like that out of their ass in the days to come. Turn them off.

3. Any Democratic member of Congress who didn’t wake up this morning ready to fight, resist and obstruct in the way Republicans did against President Obama every day for eight full years must step out of the way and let those of us who know the score lead the way in stopping the meanness and the madness that's about to begin.

4. Everyone must stop saying they are “stunned” and “shocked.” What you mean to say is that you were in a bubble and weren’t paying attention to your fellow Americans and their despair. YEARS of being neglected by both parties, the anger and the need for revenge against the system only grew. Along came a TV star they liked whose plan was to destroy both parties and tell them all “You're fired!” Trump’s victory is no surprise. He was never a joke. Treating him as one only strengthened him. He is both a creature and a creation of the media and the media will never own that.

5. You must say this sentence to everyone you meet today: “HILLARY CLINTON WON THE POPULAR VOTE!” The MAJORITY of our fellow Americans preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. Period. Fact. If you woke up this morning thinking you live in an effed-up country, you don’t. The majority of your fellow Americans wanted Hillary, not Trump. The only reason he’s president is because of an arcane, insane 18th-century idea called the Electoral College. Until we change that, we’ll continue to have presidents we didn’t elect and didn’t want. You live in a country where a majority of its citizens have said they believe there’s climate change, they believe women should be paid the same as men, they want a debt-free college education, they don’t want us invading countries, they want a raise in the minimum wage and they want a single-payer true universal health care system. None of that has changed. We live in a country where the majority agree with the “liberal” position. We just lack the liberal leadership to make that happen (see: #1 above). Let's try to get this all done by noon today. -- Michael Moore

When I searched for the list above, I came across something he predicted in July:

In July, Moore published an essay on his website titled “5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win.” The prescient article’s content was largely ignored among the left, turning Moore into somewhat of a Cassandra figure. For instance, he predicted that Trump would win over four traditionally blue states in the upper Great Lakes Rust Belt — Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — in part by attacking the Clintons for NAFTA. And it worked.

So this morning I showed up to do a scheduled 7-minute segment on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." The conversation got so intense, so powerful that it's host, Joe Scarborough, kept waving off one commercial break after another. I was allowed a television luxury -- the chance to express my thoughts in complete paragraphs instead of in sound bytes. This lasted for 45 uninterrupted glorious minutes! The control booth apparently was going crazy. Joe blew off all commercials. "We've never done that before," said the producer. "That was the longest segment ever in the history of this show.""Epic," said the stage manager.When it was over they said they would bring their show to Flint.Thank you Joe & Mika. I've never seen a host kill 5 commercial breaks before!Here's the link: http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/michael-moore-joins-wide-ranging-election-talk-806604867876

But those looking for an escape from Trump’s policies may not need to head across the border — Massachusetts offers plenty of attractive options that our neighbor to the north lacks.

1. If Obamacare is repealed, Massachusetts will still have universal health care. It’s been state law since 2006 and is what the Affordable Care Act was modeled on. It’s very popular, and it’s not going anywhere.

2. Ditto for marriage equality. Massachusetts’ highest court legalized same-sex marriage in 2004. So even if a conservative Supreme Court overturned itself on the issue, it would still be legal here.

3. We just legalized recreational marijuana on Tuesday. Toke on that, Trudeau.

4. Apparently, Massachusetts and Hawaii are the only states in the country in which every county voted for Hillary Clinton.

5. Aside from our very popular (and very moderate) governor, all statewide offices are held by Democrats, who also control both the state House and Senate.

6. If you REALLY need some poutine, Montreal is only a 6-hour drive from Boston.

7. Best of all, there is no convoluted immigration process with high hurdles to clear. Just aim toward New England and stop when every other store is a Dunkin’ Donuts.

Hype wrote:Don't call them that. That makes it sound like they're a coherent group. They're more like "American Daesh".

Well, that makes me feel better to think of it like that, honestly.

But don't you think it's a bad sign that they're receiving national recognition? To completely over simplify it, I feel like the (re)mainstreaming of white supremacy can't be anything but a bad sign of things to come.

Honestly? My facebook feed is full of academics / elites who are rightfully worried about what's going to happen, but they also seemed to be completely shocked that half the voters seriously think this stuff. But I don't think it's an issue of making hate mainstream again. I think it was a lie that progressives have been telling basically since Reagan that their views really were mainstream in the first place. Most academic elites hold radically different views from most other people -- and "we" tend to forget that. So long as the Baby Boomers are still around, the vast majority of people don't have either the progressive childhoods or the educations that we do. The vast majority of people, even those who have university degrees, just got through education to get a job, and then they went to work and they don't sit back and reflect carefully on what their beliefs, votes, etc., mean for anyone except themselves. Most people don't have degrees in the liberal arts, and most people aren't particularly concerned with progressive rights issues that don't concern them.

As an example: I'm surrounded by vegan animal rights activists. Sometimes it seems like EVERYONE I know thinks that animals have equal rights to human beings. But then I talk to normal humans and remember that the animal stuff is just a bubble. There are like 15 people who think like that, and 7.5 billion who don't. That of course doesn't mean that the suffering of animals isn't important -- the same way the fact that most men still hold "traditional" views about women doesn't mean that women's rights aren't important. Of course they are. And I think it's important to be worried about the most extreme versions of the worst views. The "Alt-Right" aren't a cohesive group precisely because most people who watch Fox News aren't activists -- in fact, almost none of them are. It's not a good thing that norms can regress or stagnate, but I don't think it's any better to shout "hate crime!" at everyone who unthinkingly voices assent to this shit. Hell, just read this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... ?CMP=fb_gu --- It's not an Onion article, but it sure sounds like one -- except that I can totally see people thinking like this. It's not like you have to have a worked out ideology to vote stupidly.

In the postscript to the 2016 US election, the inability of pollsters to gauge Donald Trump’s support in key swing states, from Florida through the rust belt to Michigan and Wisconsin, is being widely studied.

Who were these “underground” Trump voters? Were they ignored? Did they hide themselves in plain sight? The same – discredited – pollsters now say white women carried Trump to victory. But it was more than that. In North Carolina, with its rapidly changing demographics, the polls predicted a tight race. The candidates visited the state almost 30 times, each fishing for the state’s 15 electoral college votes. In her final campaign rally on the eve of Tuesday’s vote, Clinton was on stage there with Lady Gaga. Twenty-four hours later, she learned she had lost the state to Trump by four points, 51%-47% – a loss that did not guarantee his victory nationally, but strongly suggested it.

Since the result last week, many Americans who kept their Trump support private have began to reveal themselves. As with the Brexit referendum vote, the decision has caused familial rifts. Here, North Carolinian voters explain their decision-making.

James Morrison, 25I was freaked out about Hillary because there were 33,000 emails that we’ll never know what was in there. To not let the FBI review them after you’d been subpoenaed? That’s a huge concern for me. I voted for Obama because he wanted to bring change and unity. Hillary was more talk than walk and more transparency would have been good. I have a lot of friends who voted for Hillary. If she’d kept Sanders I’d have been more inclined to go toward her, but I liked Trump on trade because it’s true we’re losing a lot of jobs to China.

Tracy Guthrie, 47Trump was not my first pick but I’m from a military family and I don’t believe Hillary Clinton had any respect for the military. Any military person who destroys emails and lies about it would be buried underneath the jail. Trump was disgusting because of what he said about women, but he was the lesser of two evils. I don’t think everybody should be deported. I’m not homophobic, I’m not racist. I’m pro-military, and I don’t believe she is. We need a strong military because we live in crazy world.

Tova Mandissa, 43Clinton was in the chair too long. She knows her way around truth. But Trump is a self-made man. You don’t have to be a politician to be a president, you just have to know how to better yourself. I’ve seen those TV shows – The Apprentice – and he was good with African-Americans and we need a very strong man. I like to see who someone is. You are who you are. At least he’s not the kind of person to get in the White House as one thing and then – boom – here’s who I really am. I know who he is up front. Plus they were not going to treat her right as a woman, they weren’t going to treat her fairly.

Louis Coletta, 78I’m a small businessman and Obama never did anything for small business except tie us up in red tape. He offered hope and change, but it wasn’t change for the better, at least not for business people. The south has traditionally been very poor. The Democrats offered something for free. But I don’t want something for free. My granddad was an immigrant from Italy. His ice-cream business is now third generation. I think a man’s a fool if he has his own business and he’s a Democrat. Trump appeals to me because I think he’s going to shake things up. Everybody’s ready for change.

Scott Sandlin, 49Trump wasn’t worried about speaking his mind. Sure he flip-flops a lot, but he was talking about the working man and bringing back jobs. He’s not a politician, got his own money so he really can’t be bought. We’d seen enough dirt on Bill and Hillary. It seemed like an old story and we needed a change. I think he’s going to shake it up. I like it when he said it was time for Republicans and Democrats to work together, to bring America back to where it was before – great. I don’t make enough from a 10-bucks-an-hour job to pay for health insurance. But I have to admit to you what my grandmother said: “When the Clintons were in before, times were great.” But times they are a-changin’, the old Bob Dylan thing.

Michael, 29I usually vote independent. But this time I voted Trump because things ain’t working. The economy hadn’t bounced back like they wanted it to. My wife and I, we struggle. I like Trump’s business sense. He could get rid of the fraud and unnecessary expense. Hillary Clinton had a lot of experience but it wasn’t all good experience. Her trustworthy stuff was big for me. The investigations and FBI stuff might be normal for a lot of politicians, but it wasn’t normal or appropriate for me. Trump’s a businessman. It doesn’t bother me he went into bankruptcy. Not every idea can be a great idea and he climbed out of that hole.